The Arrow and The Song
by sabrinareno
Summary: Batman discovers a nefarious plot to distract Green Arrow, but to what end?  Featuring Batman, Black Canary, Green Arrow, with some help from Birds of Prey, Titans & JLA.  BM/BC, BC/GA
1. Chapter 1

**I haven't written anything in years. I mean it. Years. This began as a writing exercise to warm up the near-petrified muscle, and in response to my frustration with "DC's The New 52." If anyone should read this, I would be so grateful for a few words, kind or otherwise. **

THE ARROW AND THE SONG

"I shot an arrow into the air,

It fell to earth, I knew not where;

For, so swiftly it flew, the sight

Could not follow it in its flight.

I breathed a song into the air,

It fell to earth, I knew not where;

For who has sight so keen and strong,

That it can follow the flight of song?

Long, long afterward, in an oak

I found the arrow, still unbroke;

And the song, from beginning to end,

I found again in the heart of a friend."

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

ONE

The verdant pines towered like emerald giants, nearly obscuring the overcast sky. The Green Arrow stepped over a fallen tree, and noticed the chartreuse moss practically glowed upon the thick bark. The greens were unnaturally vibrant from the overnight rain, and the forest's perfume was overwhelming. This was how he most loved the forest, freshly scrubbed. All of the former day's imprint washed away by the rain. Ollie appreciated a fresh start, in all it's forms.

He was being followed. More a preternatural sense than an acquired skill that he realized, this time, his visitor was a friend.

"Hey Bats, if you're just about done skulking..." he called to the woods.

"Oliver," Batman said by way of greeting, stepping from behind a twisted juniper tree.

Ollie nodded his hooded head, "and what brings you to my neck of the literal woods?"

"Light."

To the point, as always.

"Dr. Light? As in, the resurrected-rapist-asshole-Light?"

"Yes."

"I thought Kimiyo smoked his ass."

"He's back. Again."

"Uh huh. He been the one tracking me?"

"Yes."

Ollie contained his giddiness, bubbling up inside him like a shaken soda. He hadn't seen Bruce since his resurrection-of-sorts, and his stony face, curt answers and threatening stance was a strangely welcome sight.

"I've caught a whiff of someone tailing me, besides you, of course. And you've been following him?"

"I've been...keeping an eye on him."

"Any idea why he's so interested in yours truly?"

"Not definitively, no."

"Want to float some theories past me?"

Batman was slow in answering, "no."

"All right then."

Oliver conceded the staring contest to his friend. He leaned against a tree, twitching his shoulder blade against the bark to scratch an itch.

"It's good to see you, you know. The fill-in did a good job, but he was sort of a Dick," Ollie laughed at his own pun and let his quiver slip from his shoulder, thudding to the softened ground.

He triumphantly noted Batman's smirk, and continued, "Wasn't really sure I would see you. I have had more visitors than you'd think, given my indiscretions. Conner's been stopping by a couple times a month. He doesn't say much, but he always leaves me a book. Transcendental Meditation, Zen Buddhism...various subjects he must feel will help me evolve into less of an asshole."

Batman settled in to a leonine squat, alert and listening. He seemed somehow lighter to Ollie - as though an Up-style balloon bunch was now tethered to his always granite countenance. Batman's time away appeared to allow him to hover above the reach of his usual vapor trail of ghosts.

Ollie caught a whiff of pine sap on a breeze, and his mind returned to Connor's visit. His face was suddenly weighted, and his eyes pressed to a squint.

"Bats, you familiar with synchronicity?"

Batman nodded, "Jungian. The only significance to coincidental events, Oliver, is the significance you yourself assign to them."

"Yeah, I used to think that too. Finding connections in random events, it just seemed like taking one step closer to delusional paranoia," Ollie raised his eyebrows, "so you might want to give the theory a wide berth."

"The point?"

"Not sure I have one. Just that I used to listen to Dinah read this children's book to Lian. I remember it specifically, because it was an illustrated version of this Robert Frost poem. Its all about this guy hanging out in the woods; beautiful illustrations... there was a massive snow covered tree and a quaint little horse-drawn sleigh on the cover. Anyway, one night Dinah tells me she finds it strange that a poem about a man contemplating suicide is masquerading as a kid's storybook."

Batman nodded, "_The woods are lovely dark and deep, but I have promises to keep. And miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep."_

_ "_Figures you'd know that one," Ollie smiled. "So I listen to her read it and from then on I can't hear anything but this guy thinking about offing himself. But there's a real beauty in it, you know, the guy deciding that he's got responsibilities and can't go sticking a gun in his mouth and let others take up the slack for him."

Ollie sucked in a breath, and blinked a few times. Then tentatively, "when I murdered him...Prometheus...when I killed him, there was a stack of books next to his feet. On the top of the pile was that same book. Great big snow covered tree on the cover and everything..."

Batman scowled, then grumbled, "Was it Lian's copy?"

"No. I checked. Dinah always kept the copy with her, so that wherever she was, she could call Lian and read her the story."

Ollie continued, "anyway, I was having quite a bad day yesterday. Full of self-loathing and regret, and I, uh, started, to think about these woods - " he gestured around him with a sweep of his arm.

Batman tilted his head slightly, "how they're lovely, dark and deep?"

"Something like that...and Conner shows up. Doesn't say but three words to me, drops a book at my feet and takes off. Well, I open up the book, it's about synchronicity and it's connection to Buddhism and quantum physics or some such shit, it's good, I'm only halfway through it...and there in the middle of this book is a faded grocery receipt, looks like a makeshift bookmark from whoever read this book last, and on it, scrawled out, word for word, is that same damn Robert Frost poem."

Batman stood as still as the tree next to him, "did it remind you that you have promises to keep?"

"Yep. And about a million miles to go before I sleep. But Bats, the thing is, I've never told a soul about that book being at Prometheus' place."

"Perhaps it isn't necessarily detrimental to assign importance to coincidental events."

"Could be. Or perhaps the coincidences are part of an underlying pattern."

Batman stared openly at him, when Ollie laughed in a huff, "or perhaps I am just finally going completely looney. Think you're going to have to drop me at Arkham?"

"Not quite yet. I still hold out hope for you, Oliver."

"Yeah, I noticed. What's that about? Where's the good old ghoul sitting in final judgement?"

"A jury took care of that."

Batman _was_ different. He had been resurrected with an unmistakable tint of empathy. Ollie tried corking his envy of Bruce's fresh start. Ollie had squandered many a clean slate, and shook his head slowly, heavy with regret, "Bruce. I killed a man. In cold blood."

"I'm not saying I condone your actions, neither that you're trustworthy - "

Ollie turned his head suddenly, his ear following the noise. Twigs snapping. Up high. Something lacking grace was approaching.

"Think I've got another gentleman caller, Bats. Raincheck on the warm and fuzzies."

Dr. Light appeared in the small clearing, above them, a halo of incandescent light encircling his floating form. His lanky hunched form was clothed in his ridiculous black leotard, a silver fin capping his head. If Jaws were being interpreted balletically, Ollie figured Dr. Light a shoe-in.

"There you are!" Light laughed, effortlessly waving away the approaching batarang and arrow. "And the Batman too! I'm not here for a rumble, fellows. I've just brought you a gift."

"I hope you've brought a gift receipt," Ollie spat, nocking another three arrows; his peripheral simultaneously clocked Batman's changing stance and weaponry.

"As you well know," Light continued, "I've always had a certain affinity for helpless women, but I must tell you that I've discovered an new appetite for dead women. Less fuss. None of that annoying screaming and thrashing and such."

"Jesus, you're one sick puppy. Get to what you want or shut the hell up," Ollie growled as he let fly another two arrows, all dissipated instantly at a wave of Arthur Light's arm.

"What do I want?" Light smiled, and a hologram sprang from him, bathing the forest floor in a bright image.

Seconds stretched miles, as Ollie's eyes darted over the image, trying to process the vision of Black Canary. A gunshot wound hollowed out a bloodied space above her left eyebrow. Her blonde hair was matted with blood, her blue eyes open and clouded over in their sunken sockets. Her naked body was covered in haphazard cuts, inky bruises and bloodied fingerprints. Ollie's eyes raked over the image of Light's grip on her, the man's bony fingers sunk into her mottled hips, gleefully raping the dead woman. The _dead_ woman. _Black Canary_ was dead.

Ollie's conical vision collapsed into blindness. He knew he was firing arrows, his arms all muscle memory of fury, and he could hear himself screaming. It felt like a memory of screaming. His lungs squeezed shut like a bellows, all the air escaping.

He couldn't see.

He couldn't breathe.

_Dinah._

AUTHOR'S NOTE

*I know, kinda icky there for a few lines. Not to worry, dear reader, all is not what it seems, as you'll see in Chapter 2.*


	2. Chapter 2

THE ARROW AND THE SONG

TWO

Dinah sprang up the stairs, two at a time from habit, despite her exhaustion. A white plastic takeout bag was looped around her wrist, and the aroma of chinese food unfurled through the stairwell with her movement.

Her intention was to have a quick lunch with Oracle, then head home to disappear under her duvet. The assignment had been successful, but not without challenges, and Dinah was ready for a few days off.

Angry, decidedly male, voices ripened as she approached the door.

_ Who the hell was yelling at Babs?_

She yanked on the door, banging her elbow joint and burst into the room, muscles tensed to fight.

Batman's arms were slung around Green Arrow's torso, pinning his arms down. Ollie's maroon face was twisted in anger, and he was hollering nearly incoherently.

"She's fine, Ollie! I just talked to her!" Oracle leaned forward in her wheelchair, emphatically.

"Who's fine? What's going on?" Dinah asked, and all three of their heads swung to pin her with their eyes.

Ollie pulled from Bruce's loosened grasp and rushed her, enveloping Dinah in an embrace. He pressed his mouth roughly against hers, his kiss salty and desperate. Oliver's overwhelming affection both aroused and enraged her, and she answered the confusion by sinking her fist into his muscled gut.

"Oof," he expelled, falling onto his ass.

"What in the hell is wrong with you?" she demanded, dropping the bag of takeout to the ground with a thud. "That's not the kind of greeting you are entitled to anymore, jackass!"

"Canary," Batman interrupted gruffly, "something's happened."

Batman stepped towards her, then halted purposefully. His nostrils flared and his prominent jaw jutted side to side. His veiled emotion, indiscernible to most, was not lost on Dinah.

Ollie's light chuckling drew her attention. His rheumy eyes met hers, his face warring between his pride-tinged laughter, "that's my pretty-bird," and the tears streaking angry crimson trails down his face.

Dinah knew Oliver Queen as she knew no one else. She knew the specific pad of his socked feet walking down a bamboo hall; she knew his unique sweet scent of beeswax, tung oil and Hugo Boss; she knew the irksome crunch of his Dorito-snacking, and how the unnatural orange painted his golden goatee until he scrubbed it with that pungent Indian soap he loved; she knew the cadence of his words from a room away, and how his register during a rant could raise, with his blood pressure, from a gravelly baritone to a nearly searing soprano. She knew his every emotional nuance, but the expression dressing his face, in all their years together, she had never encountered and couldn't decipher.

"Oliver?" she took a tenuous step towards him, "Oliver, what's happened? Mia? Conner?"

"They're fine," he sniffed, gazing at her, unblinking. Tears continued to make their way down his face, and he made no motion to wipe them. He gaped at her with a look of crazed joy that completely unnerved her.

Like a virescent flash bulb, the Green Lantern teleported before them.

"Dinah!" Hal exclaimed as he spotted her. In one swift move, he engulfed her with his arms, too tightly, and laughed, "thought we lost you there. I was at Watchtower when Batman -"

"Where the hell have you been?" Batman demanded, taking a threatening step towards Hal.

"Doing what you couldn't; I was securing Light," Hal shot back, placing Dinah on her feet. Hal always smelled of mint and Old Spice, as her father did, and she found it irritating at the moment, rather than comforting. Her anger flared, confused by the physical assaults of affection, the ballooning egos, and the utter lack of information.

Dinah fumed, "someone needs to tell me what is going on! Like, right now!"

"Oh my God!" Oracle gasped, as the massive monitors began replaying Light's performance in the forest.

"Turn if off. Turn if off _now_, Barbara," Batman directed.

Oracle ignored him, likely more from shock than defiance.

Dinah took a step towards the monitors, her mouth slack and instantly dry, "that...that looks like me."

Ollie scowled, not taking his eyes from her, "it _was_ you, Dinah. I was sure it was. It was so real. Hell, even that scar above your hip - "

"It is," Batman grumbled, "a remarkably...accurate illusion. Turn it _off_, Barbara."

"What is he - ?" Hal's eyes widened as he took in the image before him.

Dinah shook her head, horrified, "it looks like...like he was..."

"...raping your corpse," Oracle grimaced. She tapped the bottom of the screen with one of her coral fingernails, and the images disappeared from view.

Silence strangled the room. Dinah extended her hand to Ollie and helped pull him to his feet. Her hand stayed trapped in his, as he stared at it.

She was gobsmacked, "you thought he had murdered me?"

"I wasn't just taking his word on it, Dinah. You saw it; the sonofabitch was playing it like a snuff film, like he was proud of it, just like he did -"

" - with Sue," she finished. She swallowed the lump in her throat.

"A distraction - ," Batman began.

"That's quite a lot of work solely for distraction," Oracle shook her head.

Ollie guffawed, "well, we're sure as shit distracted_._"

Hal tapped his com button, "Donna? Dr. Light is still in custody?"

"Looking at his smarmy face right now," Donna's canned voice returned.

"I'll be back soon."

"She's okay, though, right?"

"Yes," Hal smiled, "sorry, yes, she's absolutely fine."

Hal kissed Dinah chastely on the cheek and squeezed Oliver's shoulder, "I'm going to head back and see what I can get out of the bastard."

"I'm going with you," Batman stated.

Hal tapped his com button again, "Donna, Batman would like to hitch a ride as well."

Within seconds, the two teleported away, disappearing like steam from a boiling pot.

Ollie's tears had ceased, but his gaze had only intensified, "I'm sorry Dinah. Kissing you, it was just -"

"It's fine."

"I just - "

"Oliver," she sighed, "I've lost you on more than one occasion. I know _exactly_ what you're feeling right now."

Dinah eliminated the space between them, slipping her arms around his waist and resting her head on his chest, listening to his heart hammering away inside him. He held her tightly, nuzzling his face to her hair, and she felt him shudder. It wasn't just empathy that spurned her to affection. He was her Oliver. And as much as she tried to ignore his pull on her, she yearned for him.

"You all right?" Dinah whispered.

"Damned skippy. You just keep on making with the breathing, would ya?"

"I'll do that," she smiled, allowing him to stroke her hair with his large hands, allowing herself a few moments of the relief that came from being in his familiar arms.

It had been well over a year since she had seen him last. Though he had physically changed very little, she noticed his Van Dyke wasn't manicured to perfection, his scent was sharper, and his muscle mass had increased. She knew he had been living in the forest that had magically sprung up outside of Star City, and she knew why.

Dinah pressed the nascent shame from her mind and deflected the memory of the last time she had seen him, in jail. She tried, as she often had, not to relive his pained expression as she abandoned her wedding ring, and in turn, Ollie himself.

The light tapping of computer keys drew Dinah gratefully from the memory, and her eyes swiveled to Oracle's back. She resembled a Titian painting with the afternoon sun streaming through the ceiling glass and lighting her usually cinnamon hair to a glowing vermilion.

"I'm booking you a hotel room, Ollie. We'll get this figured out," Oracle said, "Dinah, hand me that chinese food and then get out of here and go home. I know you haven't slept; you must be exhausted.

Oracle turned in her chair to face them, "Ollie, can you stick around for awhile and talk me through what happened?"

"Share the chinese food?" he waggled his eyebrows.

"Sure, you can have Dinah's," she smirked and adjusted her glasses.

"So, I'm leaving with an empty stomach, huh?" Dinah smiled at them, and let her hand linger on Ollie's sinewy forearm, soft and warm and gilded in his dark blonde hair, "Yeah, I guess I am pretty wiped."

She crouched, scooped up the takeout bag and handed it to Ollie. His green eyes glistened and his crow's feet danced with his transmuting expressions, "Dinah - "

"I know, Oliver. I do."

She wouldn't let him say it. She wouldn't let him reel her in by the invisible cord that forever connected them. Just as she knew with certainty, she'd never be able to sever it.

"Okay then," he resigned with a soft smile, "I'll see you tomorrow?"

"You will indeed."

AUTHOR'S NOTE:*Chapter 3 will be up soon! Feedback would be wonderful...yes, I'm begging.


	3. Chapter 3

THREE

Batman crouched just within the window's frame, the gauzy curtains billowing on either side of him. Dinah was ensconced in the horseshoe shaped kitchen, her back to him. He hung his gaze on her petite body, clothed in black knit shorts and tank top. Her long blonde hair fell in loose layers and swayed against the direction of her body like a pendulum. She quietly sang along with the Otis Redding song that played, and he took a voyeuristic satisfaction in watching her. It was a pleasing new discovery: she cooked how she fought. Each movement flowed into the next, deliberate, seemingly choreographed action, that reminded him of a vinyasa yoga session.

Her apartment was compact, and he quickly surveyed the area for changes since his last visit. The glass bistro table was littered with unopened mail, a Red Bull, a glass nail file, keys, and a silver harmonica glinting light from the setting sun back onto his face. Dusty black boots and a duffle bag puddled near the front door, fishnet stockings draped from it's open mouth. A new photo, framed in scrolled grey metal, was perched, among the others, on her corner bookshelf.

His peripheral vision caught, as she had stopped swaying suddenly.

Dinah locked eyes with him via the reflection in the microwave, "you know how adorable I think B and E is?"

"Your windows were open."

"Yes, but even in Gotham, that's not actually considered an invitation. It's called sunlight and fresh air," Dinah returned her attention to cooking, "you might try a skylight or two in that cave of yours. Come to think of it, you must have to take some mighty serious vitamin D supplements."

His eyes softened with affection as he watched her scratch her left ankle with a polished right toenail.

"Do you have proper training in operating that equipment, Black Canary?"

"What?" she laughed, "the stove?"

He smirked, and she hurled a red oven mitt like a shuriken, nailing him in the face.

"Be nice, and I'll let you play sous-chef."

He stepped from the window and removed his gauntlets, dropping them to the brown suede sofa. Sidling to her, he slipped his hands under her waistband, onto her hips, running his thumbs along a scar on the small of her back. The hardened tissue was raised like a mountain range. He nudged his index finger along her right hipbone and found the heart shaped scar he favored. An experienced cartographer of her body, he stymied an urge to recount all forty-seven of her fighting-related scars.

It was a memory he visited often: lying in bed with him one early morning, she had counted each of his scars, fingering them one by one with the open fascination of an forensic scientist. Upon completion of her wanton exam, and her declaration of "one hundred and twenty-three!" he had flipped her beneath him in one smooth motion, and asserted himself as the winner.

"The winner?" she balked, as he kissed her collarbone.

"You have forty-seven scars."

"You've counted them?" she asked, dubiously. "What am I saying? Of course you've counted them, Captain Compulsive. But I still win."

"How are you drawing that particular conclusion?" he smiled into her neck.

"You've been tagged one hundred and twenty-three times. Clearly, I'm the better fighter here."

Standing behind Dinah in the kitchen, as he was, touching her skin, his restraint evaporated. He spun her easily by her hips to face him, a wooden spoon in her right hand and an amused expression dressing her face.

"Take it off," she said, as he dipped his face to her. "I'm not making out with the cowl."

It dropped with a heavy thud onto the honey hardwood floor, and he was finally kissing her. He pressed against her, sliding his hand under her soft tank, and up her spine. He cupped the back of her neck easily with his hand. He could break her neck in one easy move. The abhorrent thought propelled his need to confirm her existence bodily. He became vertiginous with his need to taste her, to feel her breathe.

She ended the kiss, pulling from him with a quizzical smile. She tilted her head and scoured his expresion, "you okay?"

"I'm...good," he nodded.

"Okay. Good. Help me out and chop those scallions. I am sooo hungry."

He smoothed her silken hair with a sweep of his hand and peeked over her head to the pot simmering, "what is it that you are attempting here?"

"_Attempting?"_ she huffed, punctuating her statement by jabbing the air with her spoon. "I'll have you know that I can expertly prepare, from scratch, mind you, three separate dishes. Yes, that is the extent of my culinary knowledge, but it gets me by just fine."

Bruce picked up a parring knife and began slicing the green onions that were flayed out like fallen soldiers on the warped wooden cutting board.

"Now," she continued, "we are currently making coconut curry soup. My very favorite comfort food. The Thai restaurant on the corner was closed, and Babs confiscated my lunch, so..."

Dinah squeezed a split lime in her hand, the liquid gushed into the pot, "what did you get out of Light?"

"Very little," Bruce admitted.

"Mmm," she answered, while ladling the creamy yellow soup into two white ceramic bowls. "Now toss a handful of those scallions on top of these."

"You seem to be taking this in stride," Bruce said as he dropped the knife into the metal sink.

"What? The Light thing? I can't say that I don't feel somewhat violated, no pun intended."

"That isn't funny."

"No," she sighed, "it's really not."

She gathered the mail from the table like a bouquet and tossed it to the counter, along with her keys, harmonica and nail file. She tipped the can of Red Bull to her lips, swallowing the last of it, and deposited it in the blue plastic bin under her sink. Bruce glimpsed the recycling chain of arrows mocking him from the side of the bin.

They sat at the glass table together, and he lifted the steaming spoon to his mouth. The flavor was rich and complex, sweet and savory and his eyebrows raised in surprise, "this is _really_ good."

She smiled, "I know. Now tell me what you're thinking...about Light."

He scowled, "not right now."

Concern etched her features, "you're not okay, are you? You had to know that Light's images weren't possible."

"Not probable, but it was possible. I hadn't had contact with you for four hours and sixteen minutes when we encountered Light. I wasn't certain. I wasn't _absolutely certain_ that you were alive."

She placed a hand on his, tucking the tips of her fingers into his palm and squeezed. He studied her ivory hand, tendons flexing, and again her mortality seized him.

"Well, here I am, very much alive," she reassured him.

They ate their soup in silence for a few minutes. Looking at her face, into her round azure eyes, it was nearly impossible to say what he needed to. Barbara's words from earlier in the day haunted his thoughts and solidified his decision to end his relationship with Dinah.

He had returned to Kord Tower after interrogating Light, to ensure Oracle hadn't uncovered the source of Light's vision.

Financial records had danced across Oracle's monitors swiftly, as Batman approached.

"Have you investigated Light's imagery?" he fished, without offering a greeting.

She didn't turn to face him, but Bruce noted her frame tensing.

"Yes. It was actually two holograms merged."

"Were you able to divide the images?"

"Yes."

_Damn._

Oracle shifted in her chair slightly and continued, "one was an image of a woman bearing some resemblance to Dinah. Arthur Light shot her in the head and chest and raped her. Face recognition picked up her id, and I forwarded the data to Gotham PD."

He didn't want to ask, but formed the words, "and the other image?"

"I destroyed it."

She turned her chair to him, and he found himself unable to read her.

"I'm not interested in saying this anymore than you are in hearing it, but..."

_Damn._

"...Dinah is my best friend, and I can assure you that her heart will always belong to Oliver Queen."

_Blunt._

"It goes without saying, Barbara."

"And yet, I'm going to say it, and I'd like you to listen."

He acquiesced with a nod.

"Despite hell raining down on her at every attempt, Dinah continues to seek out her own little piece of happiness. Anytime a chance presents itself, she jumps at it. Especially given what she's had to endure the last couple of years, that makes her the bravest person I know."

He nodded in agreement.

"And every one of us lucky enough to have her in our lives is better for it." She hesitated briefly, "I'm just not sure...that _her_ life will be better for having _you_ in it."

He nodded again.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

"It's all right, Barbara," he replied, hyperaware of his filial tone. "Let me know if you come across anything else."

"I will," she said, "of course."

Dinah watched Bruce while her finger did laps around her the rim of her glass of ice water.

"I do not fully understand Light's intention today."

"What was yours?"

Her expression was neutral, but her eyes sparkled the way they always did when she was angered. Though he'd be loathe to admit that it was a baser desire that motivated him to challenge her so frequently in their history, it wouldn't be untrue.

"Bruce?"

"Yes, Dinah?"

"Why did you go see Oliver today?"

"I was following Light."

"And he was following Ollie?" her brows drew together in concern.

_...her heart will always belong to Oliver Queen._

Bruce's face hardened, "perhaps it was a reunion of sorts."

"What do you mean?"

"The mind wipe."

Her finger stopped mid-lap, and she pulled her hand to her chest, protectively.

Batman's growl was fastened to his voice, "I've never asked, how did you justify standing idly by and allow my memory to be stolen?"

Her pupils dilated slightly, despite her placid expression. She searched his eyes quietly for a moment, then stood from her chair. The tension hung heavily, like a wet quilt on a clothesline.

Not breaking eye contact, Dinah breathed, "whether it's your intention is to intimidate me, impress me or manipulate me, I'm really too tired to care. So pump the brakes on your mind fuck, and come and dance with me."

It gurgled from his chest and before he could process it, he was laughing.

She held her arms open to him, "you are about seven kinds of crazy, you know that?"

He nodded, still chuckling, and stood. The Otis Redding album still played, and "These Arms of Time" coated the air with protracted seduction. He encircled her waist with his arms, bending over slightly to adjust for his height.

She raised to her toes, bit at his earlobe playfully and whispered, "if it's actually bothering you, and you want to talk about it, let's do it. But Bruce?" She kissed along his strong hard jaw until she found his mouth. Her eyes flit from his heavy lidded gaze to his lips and back again, "don't start some bullshit fight with me because it's been a strange day, and you're feeling guilty about us."

He silenced her with his mouth, moving against hers as they kissed until they were aching and pulling at each other's clothes.

/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/

Dinah pulled on black panties as she stood from the bed, and strolled to the bathroom. Bruce gazed at her ceiling, spotting a melting elephant and the letter "R" in the haphazard shapes of the white textured ceiling.

He pushed himself onto his elbows and watched her fill a glass with water from the tap.

"Why are there empty toilet paper rolls in your bedside bureau?"

She shrugged, from the bathroom, "old habits die hard."

Dinah was, he was relieved to find, rarely offended or surprised by his disregard of her privacy. He had probed every inch of her home, with the mental pretense of sussing out surveillance equipment. Closer to the truth, in Dinah's words, was that he was an "overbearing paranoiac with trust issues." How did she manage to veneer that description in tenderness?

He had fought beside her for decades and had been sleeping with her for seven months. He trusted her. Mostly.

He pulled the drawer by the nickeled knob, and brushed aside the sea of brown paper rollers, revealing a children's book. He knew it was the very book Ollie had chronicled earlier in the morning, but he was compelled to touch its cool white cover, and review the sketch of the tree and horse-drawn sleigh.

"You have a habit of collecting empty toilet paper rolls?"

"Yes," she stated simply, her voice outfitted in the metallic echo of bathroom acoustics.

A monosyllabic answer was not customary for Dinah, and it piqued Bruce's interest. When he broached a subject, Dinah expanded. He was laconic; she was loquacious. It was an easy rhythm for them.

"Why is that?"

Her lithe back to him, he watched in the mirror as she busied her hands, but with no direction. She moved a brush, returned it to it's original spot and then placed it in a drawer.

"Ollie," she started, "he would never replace the toilet paper when it ran out. It used to drive me crazy. He'd just leave the damn cardboard roll on the holder."

She stared at her hands, unmoving. He waited for her to continue.

"So I collected them in a drawer until it was full, and then one day, I attacked him with them," he watched her face lift into a soft smile in the bathroom mirror. "I just pelted him relentlessly with them, one after another until I ran out. God, the look on his face was priceless. It just sort of became a thing with us after that. We'd each stash the rolls as we came upon them, biding our time until we had sufficient ammo and then battle it out spontaneously. Once, he even made a toilet paper roll arrow."

He watched her face as she rolled over the memory, "seems like a couple of lifetimes ago." She blinked slowly, sighed and shook herself by meeting Bruce's gaze in the mirror.

"Anyway," she smiled broadly, spun to face him and winked playfully, "round two?"

She sauntered towards the bed, and arousal tugged at Bruce's resolve. His eyes trailed from her pink erect nipples down her delineated abs to the swell of her oscillating hips.

"I thought you were tired," he said weakly.

She swung her leg over balletically and straddled him, the heat from her unhampered by the thin swath of silk panties. She bent over him, kissing and biting his neck.

"Dinah," he whispered.

He determined he had approximately nine seconds to get his point across before her mouth would be on him and his intention dissolved in her affections.

"Mmmhmm?" she said, kissing his chest and inching her body down between his legs.

The phone rang.

_Six seconds._

"Ignore that," she directed, her warm breath on his stomach, her tongue circling his navel like water down a drain.

The phone rang again.

Her interest was being drawn south of his navel.

_ Four seconds._

"Those three dishes you can make from scratch...?" he croaked.

The answering machine cut the third ring in half with Dinah's recorded voice.

Bruce ignored his body's response to her attention, "...would one of them be a recipe for extra spicy chili?"

She stilled instantly, pinning him with her wounded expression.

Oliver's grave voice filled the room, and she gaped at the answering machine as though the living embodiment had walked in the room, "Dinah, it's me. It's Ollie. Something's happened. I need you to meet us. Right now. I'm at the tower with Oracle. She's found something important, Pretty-Bird, so shake a tail feather."

Bruce closed his eyes and sighed, "goddamned synchronicity."


	4. Chapter 4

FOUR

Ollie paced the hallway, his leaden boots making soft contact with the cork floor. The cerulean walls and ceiling gave the hall a watery melancholy, and left him feeling caged. There weren't any windows to gaze from and no paintings to appreciate, just cold institutional walls. He tried to settle his mind, focus his breath, and release the listless and ineffectual feelings he carried by counting his steps.

The elevator doors, which were also blue, opened with a chime, and Batman slid from them with a nod of greeting. Batman on an elevator. Ollie was sure there was a joke in there somewhere, and chuckled throatily.

"What is it?" Bruce asked, raising an eyebrow.

"You. There wasn't a heating duct you could shimmy through and drop in to scare the crap out of me? You getting lazy in your old age?"

Bruce smiled genuinely, "I've been told that I'm...mellowing."

"Mellowing, huh? I guess there are worse things," Ollie scratched at his neck, and resumed pacing, "so Babs kicked me out once Dinah got here. She said she needed a couple of minutes with her alone."

"What new developments - "

"- no idea. Babs is acting weird, secretive, even by your bat-standards. She's found something, but said she needed to talk to Dinah first. I'm about ready to just bust in there and demand some answers."

"Give them some time, Ollie," Batman said.

When Dinah had arrived earlier, hands shoved in the pockets of her soft leather jacket, strong fishnetted legs tucked into her black boots, long torso poured into her black bodysuit, he nudged his perpetual lust to the back-burner.

Her glaucous eyes met his, and for a moment, he thought he might be able to convey his feelings properly. Years ago, a lifetime ago, he might've christened it love. It was more though, something ancient, something that dropped his soul through the floorboards. He wanted to explain that it expanded beyond plans, beyond age, beyond the past. It was folding every moment they had on itself; he was swimming in it, and it was the only thing that mattered. He had tripped upon the epiphany a hundred times through the years, but could never sustain his hold on it like he could now. Now, it was something solid that didn't flit in and out of his radar; it was the whole of his vision. Yet, it would be unfair, he knew, to yoke her to his revelation. He wished she could bask in this heady joy, and just warm from it, ditching her concerns of becoming trapped within its confines.

The solution escaped him like the chimera it was, so he simply teased her, "if I hug you, are you going to slug me again?"

"Shut up," she laughed, throwing her arms around his neck. He had clutched her waist and kissed her temple, and it was simply enough.

Batman was now crouching in the opposite corner of the hall, quietly watching Ollie think.

"Did Babs tell you what's going on?"

"She indicated that she would brief me upon my arrival."

"Did you guys get anywhere with Light earlier? Hal hasn't checked in."

"No. He eluded to receiving payment for his services, but didn't reveal if payment was his sole motivation."

Ollie heard the hitch in his voice, "there's something else."

"Yes, but we should wait until we hear what information Oracle has."

"Spill, Bats. Who knows how long we'll be out here?"

Bruce cleared his throat and said, "Roy is involved."

"Okay. Involved how?"

"He paid Light - "

"Roy _paid_ Dr. Light?"

"He paid Light to distract us."

"Why?"

"I don't know."

"He wouldn't have been involved with that...that _repulsive_ hologram. He may hate my living guts, but he'd never hurt Dinah."

"We'll get it sorted out, Oliver."

Ollie wasn't sure if it was the recent emotional turmoil or the color of the stupid walls, but he was grateful for Bruce's assured presence. He was proving an unexpected liniment to Ollie's unrelenting anxiety.

The elevator slid open again. This time, Huntress sashayed into the hall.

"Well, hello. What are you boys doing hanging out in the hall?"

"Oracle needed a word in private with Canary," Batman groused.

Ollie smiled in amusement with Bruce's bristling, and the return of the Batman voice. He evidently still took issue working with Huntress. _He hadn't mellowed that much._

"Babs call you in?" Ollie asked.

"Yes. She filled me in on your powwow with Dr. Light this morning. That guy's a piece of work."

Ollie nodded, "that's one way to put it."

Huntress folded her arms across her chest and leaned into the wall. Ollie noted with appreciation Helena's athletic form, large boned and tall, imposing in her sculpted equine-like beauty. Clothed in her purple costume, she was reminiscent of a Cornish flag. Her thick mane of raven hair framed her oval face which was punctuated by her roman nose, mascara dressed eyes and large plump lips, painted burgundy. The Bat-Handbook requirements, he had long thought, must have dictated the dark attire and personality to match.

"Hey Ollie? I may not get this chance again," Huntress said, "so can I give you some advice, one fuck-up to another?"

"Absolutely," Ollie chortled at her characterization, "do your worst."

Batman scoffed, and Huntress rolled her eyes in his direction.

"A few months back, Dinah was in Bangkok and trapped in a pretty awful position. She, with damn good reason, was convinced that she wasn't going to live through it. The one thing she asked of me, was to give you a message...to tell you that she loved you."

He smiled his thanks to her. Although reassuring, he infrequently doubted Dinah's love, and found the declaration likely had less effect than Huntress had intended.

"I'm not done," she continued. "I tell you this because I think you should know; because, you should be in awe that after all your shit, you're still the one on her mind when she's jumping into the the lion's den."

Ollie felt his smile fade, "and I am."

"I'm not making my point very well," Huntress bit her lip, and planted her hands on her hips. "Listen, you know the security guy that let you into the tower? Savant?"

Ollie grit his teeth, "I know what he did. Does that count?"

"Yes, I'm sure you do, but I doubt Dinah ever told you the extent of it. I saw it firsthand. He didn't just break both of her legs, he tormented her, he tied her to a mattress for days, he - "

"Huntress. I'm _certain_ that isn't necessary," Batman reprimanded, angrily.

It was the subject of Ollie's nightmares. Though they varied slightly from one night to the next, the spirit of the dreams remained the same. He was impotent to stop the pain, useless in all his skill, unable to rescue the ones he loved the most.

Napping in the tower earlier, the images jumbled together, barraging him with familiar memories garbed in terror. He was sprinting down a hall, and the walls were pulsating; he could feel it in time with his rapid heartbeat. He opened a door to find a young Roy, his eyes filled with tears, hand grasping a bent spoon blackened by fire. He grabbed Roy by the shoulders, trying to shake him from his heroin-induced stupor. He heard a pop and Roy's entire right arm came off in his hand. He goggled at the limb, shocked by its heaviness. Blood, like crude oil, poured from Roy's arm socket, and he screamed, "I am Red Arrow!"

The hallway vacuumed Ollie violently from the room, Roy's arm disintegrating in his hand, and he heard Connor shout, "I'll save you Dad!" He raced towards his voice, and entered the room just as a bullet punctured Connor's chest. A surprised expression sheeted his face, and he pitched into Ollie's arms, his eyes closing. He clutched him tightly, but Connor's body fragmented to cinders in seconds.

Ollie blinked and Star City was falling around him, great hunks of concrete crashing to the ground, clouds of grey dust billowed, and he could hear Lian crying. The soot began to recede, and he spotted Lian's little body, semi-buried in rubble. He sprinted towards her lifeless form, only to find a pool of cardinal blood in her place.

The smell of the dead drifted on the air, and, like rain, blood drizzled into the puddle at his feet. He inclined his head to locate the source and found Dinah, hanging from rotting wooden rafters, her wrists rope-bound. Dozens of blood rivulets trailed down her nude body, and Ollie cried out. She opened the eye that wasn't blackened and swollen shut, and whispered, "Oliver, I missed your birthday."

The world tilted and the hall stretched him back, sliding him from away from her as he scrambled to see her. Dr. Light's voice roared in his ears, "I've just brought you a gift!" Ollie hurtled through the hall, gasping and sprinting and lungs burning, but not getting any closer to Dinah. He could hear her wailing in agony. He could hear them all. The keening was deafening, and he awoke with his ears buzzing.

Ollie tried to banish the dream from his mind, and claw his way back to the present. He pulled his hand through his hair, and purposefully slowed his breath.

"My point here," Huntress continued, "is that Dinah's capacity for forgiveness is so great, that she even extended it to Savant. That's probably an oversimplification...I mean, it's been years, but still..._she pardoned her own torturer_."

"You make it sound as if you think this is one of Canary's strengths. Forgiveness to a fault?" Batman was openly condescending.

"I'm sure to someone who never makes mistakes, it probably isn't. To us humans, it is a strength," Huntress insisted with a glare, "Savant is a better man for it. And if it came down to it, right now, I have no doubt that he would give his life for her. He's committed himself to doing good, partly because Dinah found him worthy of forgiveness."

"But what if he's not?" Ollie asked, "What if you're not? What if _I'm_ not worthy of forgiveness?"

"I doesn't matter; that's the wonderful thing. We are in _her eyes_. No one has believed in me, stood by me, reminded me of what I was capable of, like Dinah has. All we have to remember is that we owe her the courtesy of trying like hell to make her proud. And to remember, always, how lucky we are, that we have someone like her in our corner at all."

"So, hold the phone, you're, what, encouraging me to pursue her?" Ollie was incredulous.

"It's not my place. I mean, Dinah's got that lust for life thing down cold anyway, but when things are really good between you, she's a big ball of crazy happy sunshine. So what I'm trying to say, at the very least, is that she deserves to be let off the hook for divorcing you."

"Let her off the hook? She was never on the hook!" his voice climbed with each word, "Instead of encouraging her when she really could have used it, I took off with Hal seeking some skewed sense of justice. I disrespected her. I embarrassed her. And then, cherry on top, instead of mourning Lian together, instead of standing by her side to support Roy, I completely shut her out and murdered Prometheus! Who in their right mind would blame her for dumping my ass?"

Batman murmured, "she blames herself."

"And how the hell would _you_ know that?"

"She does," Huntress confirmed, "she's mentioned it more than once. She's deeply ashamed of leaving you when she felt you needed her most. Frankly, I was surprised she divorced you like that too. It was very un-Dinah. Whenever I've asked her what happened, she's just said that she failed you and then blows me off. So I know it must really plague her, if after all this time, she still can't even talk about it."

Ollie shook his head, slid down the blue wall, and sat on the floor, processing the new information in silence. He followed a chestnut vein in the cork floor with his finger, and noticed umber dirt beneath his untrimmed fingernail. He missed the forest; rather, he missed the tractable emotions birthed from embracing solitude.

After a few minutes, Ollie met Huntress' eyes, "I hadn't even considered the possibility. Thanks Helena. Sincerely. One fuck-up to another."

Huntress gave him a small salute, "so you'll fix it?"

"I'm sure as shit going to try."

Helena flashed a toothy smile and raised her eyebrows petulantly at Batman, "so, fill me in while we wait. Oracle just said that we had some trouble to deal with. What's going on?"

Ollie shrugged, "I'm not sure. Bab's has been vague as all hell. Might have something to do with a baby in Canada getting kidnapped, but I'm not sure how or if it's connected to this shit with Dr. Light."

Batman leaned forward, "a baby? A little girl?"

"Yeah, I saw the police report on her monitor. Her parents were murdered and the baby is missing. How did -."

"-we've been waiting long enough," Batman decided gruffly, reaching the silver keypad in one easy stride, and tapped in a code with a ten-key too fast to decipher.

"What happened to 'give them some time'?" Ollie grumbled, pulling himself from the ground and following Batman and Huntress through the door.


	5. Chapter 5

FIVE

Next to the rigid sapphire couch, Dinah stood, eyeing the vase of calla lilies. She dragged her finger along the center of a velvety cream petal to the browning tip. They had lasted longer than expected, but she predicted the stems would bend by the end of tomorrow, weak with water, dragged down by the head weight.

Dully she recognized that they were expecting her to speak, but rotating her eyes to greet them seemed an arduous task when her lids felt so weighted, her limbs leaden, her thoughts, slowed like they had to wade through molasses to get to her mouth.

"Dinah," Oracle barked, awakening her awareness, "you wanted to update them."

Dinah glanced at her friends, and sucked in a steadying breath.

"What's wrong?" Huntress asked, her brows knitted tight, her arms akimbo.

Green Arrow released his weapons to rest against Oracle's desk. The quiver and bow slumped against each other like tired friends. His face robed in consternation, he assessed Dinah with a raised eyebrow.

Dinah sensed Batman's presence, but didn't seek visual confirmation.

"Dr. Light was drawing our attention away...from a concurrent kidnapping," Dinah felt her chin quivering involuntarily, and she bent over, supporting herself by placing her hands on her thighs.

"Shit," she whispered. _Don't cry, don't cry, don't cry, don't cry..._

Oracle's hand was on her forearm in an instant, "do you want me to brief them?"

She was offering herself up as a shield, but Dinah couldn't shift the responsibility. She would have to tell him. She would have to tell Ollie.

"No," she shook her head and righted herself, "my daughter was abducted."

Huntress stepped forward, "seriously? Didn't that White Canary bitch give her word that she wouldn't bother Sin again."

"Sin's fine," Babs offered, "she's doing really well with her family."

"My baby..." she lifted her eyes to Ollie. He was squinting, the way he did when he was trying to work something out. "_Our_ baby..."

"I don't understand," he said flatly. His tanned skin set off his large almond-shaped eyes, glowing green as malachite. Combined with his strong sharp nose, high cheekbones and thin pink lips, he was as handsome as he ever was. The laugh lines, crows feet and silvering at his temples just made him more accessible; there was an undeniable Robert Redford quality to his tawny beauty.

"Our baby was abducted, Oliver. Someone took her."

"Our...baby?"

Nausea washed over her in a chill. She knew Ollie was waiting for her to speak and tried to summon words that could help him understand. She felt a look pass between Babs and Helena. _Don't cry, don't cry, don't cry, don't cry..._

"Yes. Our baby. The day I learned that you had killed Prometheus, I also learned that I was pregnant. I was eight weeks pregnant with our child."

"What are you talking about?" Ollie shook his head, nearly whispering, "you can't have children."

"I can. I did. Six doctors insisted it wasn't possible, but I gave birth to a baby girl, fourteen months ago. She's fourteen months old," Dinah murmured.

It tumbled from her in a maundering wave, "everything just fell apart. I had disbanded the Justice League, relinquished my chair, J'onn, Bruce and Lian were dead, Roy was maimed and suicidal, Mia was confused and wracked with guilt, you were in jail for murder...to bring a baby into our family, into our world, was unthinkable."

She felt a tear slide over her lip and salt her mouth, "I considered an abortion, but I just couldn't...I couldn't. I went to Portland under an alias until she was born, and then she was adopted."

Portland. After a labor riddled with complications, Dinah and the baby were cloistered in a hospital room for eight idyllic days. She never let unnatural light touch them, allowing the sun to color the room a soft mauve through the polyester curtains during the day, and darken to only a hallway glow at night. The chalky medicinal smell and itchy sexless bedding imparted a sense of stability, while their symbiotic link fortified outside of the womb. When she wasn't nursing, the baby dozed on her chest, her tiny body compressing with each breath, her downy head tucked beneath Dinah's chin.

Ollie rubbed his forehead like it might release a genie, "why adoption? Why didn't you just leave, Dinah? Just disappear with the baby and never look back?"

"I've managed to anger a lot of bad guys over the years. I have enemies now, that would not stop until they'd found me," Dinah tried to steady her voice. "I think we've learned that a faked death would have done little to deter these lunatics. Even if I could have pulled that off, was I supposed to lie to my child her whole life? Pretend to be someone else? Lie to her about you?"

"Ollie," Oracle's defensive voice was unmistakable, "we ran every possible scenario before Dinah decided. Her only concern was the best life possible for your child."

"I...I don't doubt that. I know I don't have a right, to even question what you did, I just...I don't know. It's unexpected. Really unexpected."

Dinah was suddenly sitting on the floor without having made the decision. Her vision blurred with pooling tears, and her heartbeat palpitated in her ears. The disjointed memories of her child that she tried so hard to tamp down, she was now conjuring unabated: here was her impossibly soft skin, scrubbed pink, wrinkled and loose on diminutive bones; here was her tiny fingers like matchsticks, curled into a fist; here was her smell, God, her smell, sweet like spring water.

Dinah's chest tightened with a singular love, crippling in intensity. She had never felt anything like it, and she could feel it now. It hurt like no physical injury ever had. She clutched her ribs with her right arm, trying to squeeze the pain out.

"I gave her up, Oliver. I wanted to protect her, to keep her safe from the mess we've made of our lives, from people who would use her to do us harm, from being orphaned and abandoned. And what good did it do? The parents she loved, they're dead. And I gave her up, for nothing. I gave her up, Oliver," she could hear her own breathlessness, and worked to quell the rising panic.

Ollie ambled to her and dropped to sit beside her trembling form. He rested his head against hers, shoulders grazing, his lips close to her ear.

"What's her name?" he asked softly.

She turned her face to him and found his eyes glistening with emotion, "her name? I...I named her Olivia Lianna."

He repeated it to her, smiling, "Olivia Lianna. That's a great name."

She closed her eyes, pulled in by the visions of white shells curling against her eyelids, "we were so careful. I didn't keep a single picture. I didn't visit. I didn't even keep her blanket. Who could have known? She was supposed to be safe. And now..."

She felt his calloused thumbs sweep tears from her face, "we'll find her, Pretty-Bird."

Opening her eyes, they landed on Batman's mouth, pursed into a thin line. Without her notice, he had repositioned a few feet away, directly across from her, his crossed arms bisecting his chest. He could have been a carved idol, his transfixed expression a practiced vacancy that offered nothing.

Oracle said, "we don't have much to go on. I've pulled the street camera footage, and they were wiped. Whoever did this knew what they were doing."

Batman grumbled, "Barbara, we need to locate Roy Harper. He was involved."

Dinah stood shakily, dragging the backs of her hands across her eyes, "involved in what?"

Batman scowled, his frown lines deepening, "I observed a business transaction between Arsenal and Light, three days ago. I believe he hired Light to distract you both, so that he could abduct the child."

He recited it so blankly, so completely without emotion, that Dinah just blinked dumbly at him for a moment.

"Roy? No. No, he wouldn't do that," she breathed.

Batman continued, "there's a clear money trail."

Oliver's voice was purposefully calming, "did you tell Roy about the baby?"

Dinah detected the patronizing tone and tried to suppress her irritation, "no. Ollie, the only person who knew was Babs. That's it."

"Barbara," Batman repeated, "Locate Roy. I can be at the scene in Toronto in - "

Dinah stepped towards Bruce, "it's _not_ Roy, he wouldn't...Toronto? How did you know she lives in Toronto?"

Ollie stood, "I mentioned the police report I saw on Oracle's computer."

Dinah bolted her eyes to Bruce's face while she eliminated the remaining distance between them. She derailed the urge of snatching his cowl from his head, to properly dissect his expression and goad the answers from his cobalt eyes. In truth, she didn't need to. His silence was revelatory.

"You knew about the baby?" she squeaked.

His nodded his confirmation, nearly imperceptibly.

"Of course you did," she sighed, crestfallen. "You never...you never said one word."

He replied dulcetly, "if you had wanted me to know, you would have told me."

Dizziness gripped her, and she thought for a moment she might vomit, right at his feet.

"Toronto," Batman reminded her stiffly, "I should -"

"Yes, go, but Bruce?" she grasped his forearm to steady herself and make some physical connection, but his armor was cold and smooth as marble and offered little comfort. "It isn't Roy. He wouldn't murder that innocent couple. He wouldn't do this."

She couldn't hide the desperation in her voice, and couldn't comprehend why she so needed Bruce, specifically, to believe her.

He placed a gloved hand on hers, and squeezed it gently, "I hope I'm wrong."

"I can call Zinda in," Oracle said, too loudly.

"No," Bruce answered, pulling from Dinah. "I'll fly. The fewer involved, the more likely we can ensure...long term success.

Dinah blinked her agreement to Oracle, as she sauntered back to the flower vase. Long term success? What did that mean anymore?

"I'll come with you, Bats," Ollie injected, "Dinah, you wanna try and catch up with Roy? See what the hell, if anything, he's got to do with this? If he'll talk to any of us, it'll be you."

She bobbed her head, her unfocused gaze resting on the flowers.

"Hey. Hey," Ollie said, grabbing her wrist and pulling her to him. He forced eye contact by dipping his head as though to kiss her, "don't. Don't do that. You did what you had to, and she's going to be okay. We're going to make this okay. None of that other shit matters. Now lets go to work. Let's get our girl back."

He was handing her a reprieve. It was generous and loving, and she buoyed herself to his confidence. Oliver Queen with a purpose could be intoxicating.

She hugged him, and whispered, "I'm so sorry, Oliver."

"It's going to be all right," Ollie said with such sanguinity, that she very nearly believed him.

"Where you want me, boss?" Huntress asked.

Oracle wheeled to a computer monitor, "give me a few minutes to check a couple of things out. Batman, I'm sending you the coordinates and police report."

Green Arrow gifted Dinah with a reassuring smile, swept his quiver and bow from the floor and followed the exiting Batman.

Dinah watched them go, and with them, a slab of tension. An wonted ease returned to the room, despite the circumstances.

Huntress thread her arm through Dinah's, "hey partner, how you holding up?"

"You understand why I didn't tell you, don't you, Helena?" she asked, apologetically.

"Absolutely. Explains a few things, really. Like your mysterious six-month assignment that Babs refused to discuss," she glowered at the redhead. "Listen lady, I'm here to help. Put me to work."

"All right," Oracle began. "Dinah, I know this is hard for you to believe, but you're going to have to accept that Roy's a part of this. I found the money trail Batman was speaking of."

Dinah clasped the back of her aching neck with her free hand and tilted her head, staring at the white canned lights until they imprinted their luminous coil to her eyes.

Helena tugged at her arm, "ground control to Major Tom. You with us Dinah?"

"Yes," Dinah sighed, sloughing off the despondency. "I'm sorry. Yes, I'm with you. Always. Okay. Roy. I maintain that there's a good explanation for his involvement. I know he's been mixed up, and I know that I've failed him too, but he wouldn't do this to me, and the best way to confirm that is to find his ass. Where is he? And where can I mainline some espresso on the way?"

Oracle's eyes were married to the computer screen, "Utah, and I have those sublingual caffeine tabs in the junk drawer by the sink."

"What the hell is he doing in Utah?" Dinah mumbled to herself, as she trudged to the sink. She pulled the maple drawer to her and fingered through the various gel pens, unwed earrings, rubber bands, tampons and computer discs until she found the silver tin.

"Bat-crack to the rescue," she smiled at the yellow and black bat-emblem affixed to the old Altoids tin.

"You didn't take a nap earlier?"

"I was busy," she shrugged, and the lascivious memories bombarded her with Bruce's eyes-tongue-scent-lips-hands-cock-moan. She mentally sidestepped the ready-made arousal, and focused her thoughts on Roy.

"So Roy's in Utah. Do we know what company he's been keeping lately?"

Helena flopped on to the couch with a dramatic exhalation, "this ought to be good."

Oracle grimaced at her computer, "Dinah, you're not going to like this..."

"I haven't really been a fan of most of this day, but let's hear it."

"Roy has a partner," Oracle continued reluctantly. "It's Cheshire."

Author's Note:

*My hearty thanks to those of you who have favorited the story or (even better) who have left me feedback. It's so generous of you to take the time to send me a few encouraging words. Please keep your thoughts coming; feedback is this writer's version of bat-crack.*


	6. Chapter 6

*I'm sorry for the delay in updating. Stupid life keeps getting in the way of writing. The chapter could probably use a revision or two, but I'm ready to move on, so excuse the clunky transitions. It's also a bit of a long chapter, so hunker down. One last thing, I apologize in advance for the language; it tends to happen when you piss off Green Arrow.

SIX

Batman welcomed the blue hallway, and depressed the elevator button with his black gloved finger. He was relieved to escape the lachrymose room, itching for an objective to liberate him from Dinah's emotions, from her agonizing honesty. Powerless to openly comfort her, he wondered if he even possessed the required skills. Had he ever, sans sex, provided her a modicum of solace?

Standing at the elevator, Bruce felt Ollie's hulking presence a second before his thoughts and personal space were invaded with a heaving and potent uppercut. Ollie's fist connected with his jaw and knocked him back, his teeth clacking together and his skull indenting the wall with an audible thunk.

Ollie hovered over him, puffed up like an apoplectic gorilla, "how long have you been fucking my wife!"

The elevator doors slid open with a ding.

Batman blinked hard, clearing his vision. He tongue-rolled his last remaining god-given molar and spit it to the cork floor. Another dentist's vacation financed in Bruce's implants.

"Ex-wife," he corrected, staring at the white jagged tooth laying in it's tiny yin and yang pool of saliva and blood.

The elevator doors closed without passengers.

"Goddamn it Bats! That's not what you're supposed to say! You were supposed to tell me that I was being paranoid and imagining all that, you know..." Ollie waved his arms around emphatically in the direction of the room they'd just stepped from, "all of _that shit between the two of you_!"

Batman scowled, and pushed off from the wall, righting himself to standing.

"Goddamn it!" Ollie kicked the elevator door, inflicting a dent, and kissing his boot in blue paint. "You're supposed to be my friend!"

"I'm her friend too, Oliver."

"Apparantly!"

"Calm down."

"Calm down?"

"Yes."

"Goddamn it. Goddamn it! This, this isn't the way it was supposed to... I didn't come after her. I left her alone so that she could find someone else. I didn't chase her down because she deserves better than me. _You_ are not better!" Ollie began pacing the length of the hallway, waving his white-knuckled fists like he was conducting his rant, orchestra-style. "She deserves, you know, fucking happiness! You gonna make her _happy_, Bruce? Shit. Shit!"

He punched into the drywall and a puff of blue debris fell to the floor. "Who paints a hall this fucking color?"

"Oliver," Bruce was grateful Oracle ensured appropriate sound insulation for every room and smugly noted Ollie's bloodied knuckles.

"Just shut the fuck up, Bruce. Don't say another goddamned word. Just give me a few minutes to...shit! Shit! I can't believe this. She gave away our miracle child, and she's fucking the goddamned Batman! That's just peachy."

Ollie jabbed the elevator button, and the acrylic cracked in response. It opened immediately, as though politely waiting for their quarrel to end.

"Let's just go do this. And don't fucking talk to me..." he spat as he entered the elevator, his eyes puckered in anger.

So he hadn't. Bruce didn't say anything. He lead, and Ollie followed, until they were planted into the cockpit of the plane, waiting for clearance to take off.

It was raining heavily, the boundless night broken by runway lights. The droplets spattered on the smooth ebony tarmac, shattering like glass upon impact. The silence between the two men was as heavy as the wet air.

Many shades of guilt lodged in Bruce's mind. If he hadn't been away, it wouldn't have happened. He knew with arrogant certainty that he could have prevented Oliver from killing Prometheus, and an entire line of mistakes could have been averted. Even, he lamented, his favorite mistake. This was the line of thinking that lead to dead ends, so he dismissed it, but it lingered, playing in the back of his mind like a breeze.

The black leather seat squeaked as Ollie adjusted himself, buckling in, "don't fly like an asshole this time."

"I have dimenhydrinate available should you -"

"You're going to fly like an asshole."

"It's possible."

Ollie slowly pulled his hand over his face, forehead to whiskers, "what's the travel time?"

"Forty-three minutes."

"Where's the Batwing?"

"In use."

After several minutes of uncomfortable silence and a deep sigh, Oliver asked, "she didn't tell you, herself, then? About the baby?"

"No."

"It's...I just, it was a shock. Even after her dip in the lazarus pit, all of the doctors insisted she was still unable to have children. I mean, I hoped. I always hoped. I just didn't ever imagine that it would happen. And like this. Jesus..." he sighed heavily.

Batman realized their friendship usurped the perceived cuckoldry, and even betrayal wouldn't keep Ollie from talking it through. It was something Bruce somewhat envied about him, Ollie's sense of identity was as strong as his sense of purpose. In the green or out, Ollie only was himself.

Bruce verbally nudged him, "you handled the news of your child admirably, Oliver."

"You think so, huh? Maybe the zen books are paying off after all."

"My chin would disagree."

"Hmph," Ollie snorted. "Yeah. You deserved it, but you know..."

"I do," Bruce absolved him. "You're not angry that Dinah didn't tell you about the baby?"

"Angry? That's probably an understatement. But what am I going to do? She should have told me. I had a right to know. But her choices, they were a direct result of the hell I put her through. She did the best she could, and she's blaming herself enough for the both of us, anyway. She's a wreck. Haven't seen her like that in a long time. A long long time."

Her face. Bruce hadn't been able to shake the image. The violet crescent moons cupping her bloodshot eyes, surrounded in dark wet lashes. Finger combing her golden hair unconsciously while she desperately blinked back tears. Trembling, the way she had that night, so long ago, when she was forced to live her regrets at once. Their first night together.

"When she came to see me, when I was in jail, she was rambling on about how I never wanted to be a father. She was rehashing shit that we hadn't fought about since...God, since Seattle. That's not how Dinah fights. She doesn't throw the past in your face, like that. It didn't make any sense, but she was leaving me, and that's what I focused on," Ollie stared at his hands like they were foreign objects. "I'm an idiot. She was pregnant. She kept saying it, that I never wanted to be a father, that I only really wanted to be alone. _She was pregnant._"

"You couldn't have known, Oliver."

"But I should have," he sighed. "How did you know? How did you find out about the baby?"

"It's not pertinent."

"The hell it isn't. Maybe we can determine who else is involved based on how you acquired the information."

"No. It wouldn't help."

Ollie sneered, "how about you, just for the moment, suspend the belief that you are the smartest person in the room at all times and give a simpleton like me a shot at it, huh?"

Bruce grit his teeth and breathed, "Dinah has a cesarian scar."

"She has a...oh, fuck me, fuck me, are you fucking kidding me! _Why_ would you tell me that?"

"You asked," Bruce didn't risk a glance and kept his visual focus on the instrument panel.

"Lie to me, asshole!" Ollie bellowed as he popped the clip at his chest, releasing his restraint. "It's not like you haven't had plenty of practice!"

It would be inconvenient to engage in a brawl while piloting a plane, but to his relief, Ollie stormed down the isle, and sequestered himself to the bathroom, with a slam of the metal door.

Bruce thought on her forty-eighth scar, the one he'd never asked her about. He had thumb-grazed it and subtly explored it with his mouth and eyes, noting the pink rawness and the exact length. He should have asked her, instead he attempted to manage her.

Batman knew she wouldn't mistake his controlling streak for misogyny, but wondered if Dinah would correctly identify his most pressing motivation. He was in love with her. It wasn't a jolting revelation. It didn't deluge him in panic-glossed worship, as it had with the few other women who had cajoled a similar instinct in him. It had come to him as naturally as the tidal flow, and with as much notice. He'd placed no markers, by which to measure their relationship, and now, when he should be breaking it off, he was chest-deep.

Oliver had returned to his seat, flopping down with a curt grunt, "so, she had to have a c-section?"

"Yes," Batman responded, wary of this line of questioning.

"You, what? Got your hands on her medical records?"

He noted Ollie's tone had adjusted from accusatory to curious, and he had unclenched his fists, "yes."

"Would you just tell me, all ready?" Ollie sighed, then mumbled, "fucking master of the monosyllabic."

"She delivered at 33 weeks via emergency cesarian due to placenta previa. The child was premature, but healthy, and didn't require additional medical intervention. She weighed five pounds and two ounces," he could hear the overly clinical detachment in his own voice, but couldn't prevent it. "Dinah experienced some complications, some hemorrhaging, but recovered quickly. She and the baby spent eight days in the hospital together, and then she appears to have surrendered custody to the adoptive parents."

"Jesus," Ollie whispered. "She was alone? She went through all of that alone?"

"Yes."

"And she never told you?"

"No, Oliver. Given the nature of the adoption, it wouldn't have been prudent for her to share the information with anyone who didn't need to know. I didn't need to know."

Oliver glowered out the window for the remainder of the flight. His expression softened to a thoughtful melancholia, but he was unusually reticent through the landing and travel to the home in Toronto.

The full moon glazed the house in a ghostly luminesce. They noiselessly leaped the immaculately trimmed boxwoods hedging the backyard, landing in the soft cool grass. The brisk spring air smelled of impending rain and chlorine, likely from a neighbor's pool.

They entered from the backdoor and Batman quickly examined the kitchen, while Ollie disappeared into another room with four determined strides. Batman noted the missing chairs from the breakfast nook, a juice glass shattered upon the carmel tile floor and a silver sports watch, iPhone and keys huddled together on the granite countertop.

He moved into the living room, an unremarkable mix of Ikea furniture, oatmeal colored walls, family photos and spider plants in terra cotta pots. Batman mentally logged the crime scene in the corner of the room; the kitchen's mission style chairs, smeared in blood and adorned with zip-ties, the rufous pools of blood soaked into the plush beige carpet.

He raised his eyes from the bloodied floor, to watch Oliver, clutching a tiny flashlight between his thumb and forefinger, scrutinizing a picture balanced upon his flayed hand.

"She has Dinah's eyes," he laughed, wistfully.

"There's something you should know," Bruce said, crouching next to a chair, "something I'm not sure Dinah's even aware of."

Ollie held his index finger up and his eyes and head swished to the right. Bruce turned, flicking a batarang at the corner where a figure was looming.

When had Ollie's senses become so attuned? For the second time in a day, he had outmatched Bruce's awareness. It both impressed and irritated him.

The batarang slit the side of his mask and Black Spider stepped from behind the leather couch with his hands raised in supplication.

"Whoa, man. Just hang on!" he hollered as an arrow whipped past his head and lodged, with a thwit, into the wall.

"The next one doesn't miss if you move an inch," Green Arrow warned.

"Jesus. Just chill!" Black Spider groaned, his mask glistened with a rivulet of dark blood. "I've got some info for you if you'll stop trying to kill me for half a second!"

"Talk," Batman growled.

"I was waiting for the Canary. You're married to her, right?" he was looking at Ollie.

Ollie ignored the question, his bow still drawn, "say what you have to say."

"Right. Yeah. So, I was supposed to wait here for her, to distract her, Black Canary. You know, keep her busy and shit, but well...a few years ago one of you _heroes_ shoved me off a building," he paused and sighed. "I don't remember much, but I remember Black Canary _helping_ me. I remember her voice, telling me, real nice like, that I was tough and to hang on, and she got me to a hospital."

Black Spider shook his head and crossed his arms against his chest, "I've had my run-in's with a few of you capes, and you're always grade-A dickheads. Some of you are even like, Guantanamo types, happy to keep kickin' even when a fella's down. But Canary, she shows up at the hospital a couple a days after she dropped me off, just to check on me. Like doesn't lecture me and shit, and act all superior...just tells me she's glad I'm gonna make it and to try to stay out of trouble."

"What's your point?" Ollie asked.

His latex mask lifted in a grin for a moment, and then wrinkled in response to a presumed scowl, "point is, she was decent to me, so I ain't gonna help him kill her fuckin' kid."

"Who?" Batman demanded.

"Who?" Spider laughed. "Seriously? You're the fucking Batman and you haven't figured it out yet?"

Ollie stepped in front of Batman, arms down, voice soft, "who, Spider? Who has the baby?"

During the entire course of their association, Bruce alternately hated and loved Oliver in fraternal waves that broke over him with irksome regularity. Often, a single characteristic could invite both reactions. Ollie was passionate and spontaneous, often lacking the ability or desire to self-edit in his jocular tempo, but always, he had a way with people, a way of beguiling strangers. He could reach in and drag out a joy you didn't know you had, and he could, with a few words, summon a scorching rage you thought you'd mastered.

Spider instantly reacted to Ollie's tempering, "I don't know who _has_ the baby, like right now. But I do know who's gonna get his hands on that kid, and soon. Man, we came here, and he murdered those two people that were all ready tied up. He didn't have to do that. They were scared, just trying to describe who took the baby, and he just ran them through anyway. He said he all ready knew who had the kid. Said he was tying up loose ends when he killed them. He didn't have to do that. Shame. Lady was real pretty, too."

"Enough," Batman sidestepped Ollie. He wasn't sure if Black Spider was actually helping them or simply stalling them, but his patience was woven thinly to begin with.

Black Spider held a palm up again, "take it easy there Batman. I'm not looking to take a beating. I just really want to help Black Canary, that's all. Square us up and all."

"Then who hired you!" Batman bellowed.

Visibly jolted by Batman, he whispered, "...Deathstroke. Deathstroke killed that couple like they were nothin'."

He heard Oliver sigh quietly, "fuck."

"You got that right," Black Spider shook his head.

Batman asked, "did he specify that his intended purpose for the child, was to kill her?"

"Huh? Oh. No, I guess he didn't really say much at all. I just figure, what else is he going to do with Canary's kid, right? Look, I gotta go. If Slade finds out I talked to you...I just...I gotta go."

The cockiness dissipated, and Black Spider looked from the window to the door.

Batman barked his permission, "go."

He turned to go when Ollie stopped him, "Hey, Spider? Thanks. I won't forget this."

Spider nodded and left.

Batman pointedly cocked an eyebrow at Oliver, "thanks?"

"What? Tell me that Gitmo comment didn't get to you too."

"Fair enough," he watched Oliver walk back to the picture of the baby and precede to pull the photo from the silver frame and slip it into his quiver.

"Be right back," Ollie marched into the hallway leaving Bruce to further examine the scene.

Batman lifted his closed fist close to his mouth, "Oracle."

"Go ahead," Oracle's voice filled in his ear. She was drinking something, sipping, probably tea.

"Slade likely murdered the couple. Get access to the autopsy -"

"All ready done, and yes, the entry wounds would be consistent with Deathstroke's size and preferred weaponry."

"He doesn't have the child...yet. It is still most likely that Arsenal conducted the initial abduction and that Slade is aware of his actions and in pursuit."

"F.R.S. picked them up outside Salt Lake City. Roy's there with Cheshire and they have Olivia."

"Send me the coordinates and see if you can get a location on Deathstroke."

"On it's way. Black Canary and Huntress are about an hour out."

"Barbara, make sure to let Dinah know that Roy didn't murder the adoptive parents."

"I'll tell her," there was affection in her voice. Affection for him? For his consideration. How heedless did she think him, that this small gesture of care impressed her? He decided it was possible that he was misinterpreting her reaction, and more importantly, that the bootless analyzation could be better spent.

"You're not going to believe this," Ollie laughed as he returned to the living room and tossed a book to Bruce.

Bruce snatched it from the air, and recognized it even before his eyes could process the title. The words spun through his mind again, _the woods are lovely dark and deep..._

"Hm," he grunted,

"Yeah. The flap is signed, 'from Grandma'."

"This book. Worldwide, only fifteen hundred copies were ever printed."

"First, it's weird that you looked that up, and second, you're saying then, that this is not exactly 'Where the Wild Things Are.'"

"It is...very unlikely that this particular book should become so prominent in your life, given its conservative print run."

"This synchronicity shit is starting to give me the willies," Ollie huffed, snatching the book from Bruce and slipping it into his quiver.

"You were going to say something," Ollie said gruffly, "before Arachnipants interrupted us."

"Yes," Batman turned stiffly to face him. "I procured a sample of the child's blood -"

"Stop doing that."

"What?"

"Stop calling her _the child_ like you're trying to distance yourself. As though not using her name is going to soften the blow if we fail, somehow make it not real, dehumanize her. We're not going to lose her. We're not," Ollie was seething, suddenly overcome with fear-birthed anger.

"Oliver."

"Shit. I know, I know," he sucked in a breath, "I'm just not thrilled that Slade is in the mix. I've pissed him off...a lot."

Bruce nodded.

"So, you were saying?" Oliver continued, "Something I should know, that Dinah doesn't?"

"I don't think she would have considered it. She had an amniocentesis while pregnant. Between that and _Olivia'_s newborn bloodwork, I was able to determine..."

"What?" his eyes rounded.

"Olivia, she has the meta-gene."


	7. Chapter 7

SEVEN

Black Canary whipped the ball of her foot into the heart of the wooden door, and it pitched open, crashing into the motel room wall. The room was silent, lowly lit, and she waited for a reaction.

Huntress eyed the chain lock swinging sadly from the splintered motel door and whispered, "you could have just checked to see if it was unlocked."

Dinah's arm lashed out protectively, barring Helena from stepping forward, "I wasn't kidding when I said don't touch anything. Nothing, Huntress. Cheshire can't have been here long, but that doesn't mean she hasn't laced the room."

Dinah entered and swiftly scanned the sparsely decorated room, searching desperately for the child she all ready sensed wasn't there. The cramped room still seemed bare with a rabbit-eared television atop a metal stand and a particleboard nightstand with an avocado-green lamp. The walls were probably once white, but now had a yellowish nicotine tinge, the ceiling embossed with brown water marks. One small picture of a felted clown holding a flower hung off-kilter over the single bed.

"Roy's not here, and neither is your brat," Cheshire said, seated on the bed. She was propped lazily against the oaky headboard, her slender body draped in a lacy forest green neglige. She shaped her long fingernails with broad sweeps of the pointed metal nail file, false concentration and a fresh cut dressing her olive face. Centered between her outstretched bare legs was a plastic shoebox filled with several bottles of nail polish, an iron kunai, unmarked vials of clear liquid, empty capsules and syringes. Her sleek black hair fell in waves to her shoulders, and she shook her bangs from her face as she slowly lifted her dark eyes when Dinah spoke.

"Where are they?" Dinah sighed.

She grinned like her namesake, "I won't be telling you that."

Dinah had more than tried with Cheshire. For Roy's sake, of course, and because it was inherent for her to try and suss out humanity, from even the most depraved. And Cheshire, she was the very picture of degenerate. She managed to so openly justify her heinous actions, that Dinah was hard-pressed to find any traces of decency left.

She had often wondered why Cheshire, why so many women in particular, could find themselves committing acts against their very nature. She lamented their relentless need to overcompensate, to avoid being perceived as weak by male counterparts.

In curbing a male colleague's quick accusation of being emotional, a woman would scrub out the empathy. She would hit harder, never complain of injury, hone a sedulity to the point of obsession. Mostly, she would never, under any circumstances, ask for help or require rescuing.

With enough practice and a dash of childhood trauma, Dinah could see how one might become numbed to humanity and morally bankrupt.

She even saw some of it in her own friends. She watched Babs and Helena's practiced indifference, their compressed hearts nailed, Poe-style, under the floorboards of stoicism. She could hear what they wouldn't say, verbalizing her own emotions to assist translating the feelings they would no longer identify aloud.

"We hate to interfere with your...with whatever the hell you're doing. Look, I have a feeling I'm going to need to save my energy, so I'm going to forgo the ass-kicking you so richly deserve. If you give me any crap though, Cheshire, I swear, I'll scream you into Nevada."

Huntress cocked her head and steadied her crossbow at Cheshire's chest, "New Mexico."

"New Mexico? You sure?"

"She's leaning against a south-facing wall, she'd have to be over by the bathroom when you let her have it, to end up in Nevada. Really, either way, she's fucked."

"Huh. Well, New Mexico it is," Dinah's turned her attention back to a scowling Cheshire, "Where's Roy? Where did he take the baby?"

Cheshire smirked, "You are fortunate, Ms. Lance, that I'm no baby-killer."

Dinah's stomach clenched, "good to know."

"But the day she turns eighteen, wherever she ends up, I will come for her," Cheshire cocked her head, "and I will kill her."

Huntress snorted, "she sounds like a Disney-witch."

Dinah laughed, "lil' bit, huh?"

Cheshire continued, undeterred by their mocking, "you don't deserve Roy or that baby. You deserve to suffer. You _will_ know what it's like to lose a child, Ms. Lance, just as you deserve."

Dinah's eyes softened, "because of Lian."

"You!" Cheshire pointed her finger, her eyes widened in sudden rage, "you didn't protect her. You tried to replace me in her life, and then you let her die! Your baby turns eighteen, and I _will _be the one to kill her. You _will_ know that pain."

"Jade, frankly, you're looking pretty haggard. I don't think you're going to make it another five years, let alone eighteen. And Lian was murdered by colleagues of yours; mine are trying to make the world safer for children. So one more time, where is Roy?"

Cheshire flicked her wrist, letting loose her nail file. Dinah tipped her head to let the file whiz passed and lodge into the wall behind her.

She blinked slowly, watching Cheshire's enraged face twist in anger, "you'll never find him! You'll never find that kid, either! He's making sure of that!"

"Oh. So, you don't know where he is, and he's obviously not coming back here for you," Dinah sighed and turned her words to Helena, "let's go, Huntress."

"Leave her?"

"Why not? Slade can't be far behind, Chesh. You might want to make like the wind..."

"Who," she snarled, "do you think I am waiting for? Why do you think I came with Roy in the first place, if not to finish Deathstroke?"

"Suit yourself," Dinah shrugged, turned on her heel and ushered Helena ahead of her.

"I will kill her! I will kill your child!" Cheshire shrilled as they left.

"Yeah, yeah, and on her eighteenth birthday, she shall prick her finger upon a spinning wheel..."

They stepped onto the gritty drive, and Dinah inhaled the cool dry air.

"Stuffy in there," she mumbled, "and is it just me or did it smell flammable?"

"You really don't think Roy told her where he was going?" Huntress ignored the observation and pursed her lips.

"No I don't. Whatever weird connection they have, ultimately, he doesn't trust her," Dinah tugged her gloves from her hands and stuffed them in her pocket.

She yanked open the car door, Roy's frowning face flashing across her mind, "I just thought of something. Get on the horn and ask Babs to find out if there are any Navaho reservations in Utah."

Helena's soft snores and the gentle motion of the car was enough to pull Dinah into sleep, had the caffeine not fastened her with edgy alertness. The moon had not yet broken over the hills, and the dark was slightly disorienting, so she steadied her sight on swallowing the illuminated yellow lines of the highway.

She scooped an earpiece from the center console, jammed it in her ear and pressed once.

It beeped, "Dinah?"

"Hey Babs. You find anything?" she asked softly.

"There aren't any Navaho reservations in Utah -"

"-shit."

"However, Roy's friend from his tribe, the one you told me about, married a member of the Ute Tribe, which just happens to be the reservation nearest to Salt Lake City. You are currently about...hang on...about one hundred and ten miles from the reservation. I'm sending you the directions now."

"That's it, Babs."

Hope welled in her chest.

"Maybe."

"That's the only person he would trust right now."

"It's something to go on."

Lovely Babs, so pragmatic.

"You pick up a location on Slade?"

"No, and why are you whispering?"

"I'm trying to let Huntress catch a power-nap."

"Why isn't she driving so you can get some sleep instead?"

"Sleep? Totally overrated."

"I'm sending new coordinates to Batman and Green Arrow; looks like they may beat you there."

"No."

"Dinah, I'm sure - "

"I'm not kidding, Babs. Tell them to hang back until I get there. They are _not _to confront Roy without me."

"Okay, okay. I'll tell them. You know how well Batman takes direction, so you might - "

"- drive faster? Yep. On it, " she said, pressing the accelerator to the floor.

A brief silence passed, and Dinah could hear Oracle breathing lightly.

"What's on your mind, Babs?"

"Hmm?"

"I can feel you thinking. What is it?"

"It can wait. It's not really my business anyway," her frigid reply only baited Dinah's interest.

Dinah smiled, "come on. Go ahead. Out with it."

"I, uh..." Dinah heard her swallow, "I know about you and Bruce."

Dinah's smile slid away with her slack jaw, "well, that was unexpected."

Oracle continued, "I only bring it up because - "

"How long have you known?"

"Only since this morning. How long have you two been...um...seeing each other?"

"Oh, about seven or eight months, maybe."

"That long?" Dinah heard the hurt in her voice.

"I'm sorry, Babs. I didn't mean to intentionally keep it from you."

"Then why did you? Under normal circumstances, I can't keep you from over-sharing."

"Clearly, these were not normal circumstances."

"Seven months?"

"I just, sheesh...why is this so damned awkward?"

Oracle laughed shakily, "it _is_ awkward."

Dinah let out a breath and smiled, "it's not like I'm dating your dad, right?"

Oracle chuckled, "you should be so lucky. And do you really want to open the door to that conversation? The one where we assess your choices in men based upon the father figure factor?"

Dinah squeaked, "shut the door! Shut the door!"

They both laughed, and the tension eased.

Dinah gazed at the sable night, dotted with unfailing stars, "Babs, you should see the sky out here. It's incredible."

"So, this is serious then, you and Bruce?"

"Things with Bruce are always serious."

"Dinah."

"If you're asking if he's just my boy-toy, then no. I like having him in my life. Frankly, I'm over the moon. Cripes. Why can't I talk about love without sounding like a cornball? The way Helena can speak about art without sounding pretentious, or the way you can speak about technology without sounding like a celibate nerd?"

"Love? You just said love."

"Yeah. With Batman. Who knew?" she laughed.

Silence greeted her.

"You there?"

"Yes."

"You clearly don't approve."

"No. No, I don't."

"I'm pretty well used to that, Babs."

"I'm sure you are."

"You know you and he are more alike than I realized."

"Is that so?"

"You're both so much more thoughtful and kind than anyone would expect. You're also both overbearing glass-half-empty control-freaks."

More silence.

"Why is this bothering you so much?"

"I'm just worried. I just don't know how this is going to turn out well, for either of you. You know I have to say it."

"Babs, many things I do don't turn out well, but what? Am I just supposed to throw in the towel? I don't think I could. I don't _want_ to do that."

"I know. I know. But aside from all of that, what of Ollie?"

"What?"

"Oliver Queen? The love of your life?"

A random memory clogged her train of thought: Ollie's back to her, making eggs in the kitchen, morning sun sneaking into his hair. She drew her fingers up the canyon of his spine and stamped a kiss to his bicep.

"Well, hell, Babs, I didn't say I had everything figured out. And since when have you been an Oliver Queen fan?"

"I'm not. I'm a Dinah Lance fan."

Dinah smiled, "I love you too Babs."

She heard Oracle sigh in frustration.

"How did you find out, about Bruce and me?"

"Oh, right, that's something you should know. That's why I brought it up. Now don't overreact, but there's an image. I pulled it from Dr. Light's hologram, which was actually a merged image. One of Dr. Light raping a dead woman who resembled you...and, an, um, an image of you and Batman, um, having relations."

"What?"

"Having sex."

"Of us...of us, WHAT?!" Dinah screamed.

Huntress jolted from her sleep and grabbed the dashboard instinctively, "what? what? what is it?"

Oracle spoke quickly, "I've scoured the internet and found no trace of it, and I've destroyed my copy."

"An image. That's not possible. How is that possible?"

"What's not possible?" Helena questioned.

"I don't know exactly. The encounter in question was outdoors, in the rain, if that helps pinpoint the time and location. It appears that the image was preconstructed for Dr. Light's use- "

"Oh god," Dinah groaned. "Oh my god, this is so humiliating."

"I really don't think that was the purpose, or it would be all over YouTube by now. I don't think it's going to resurface. It looks to me like a one-shot. It served it's purpose, to distract us from the kidnapping."

Outside. In the rain. It had been impulsive, unexpected and foolhardy. She had returned home after the longest night she'd had in a very long time. Thanks to a meta-creep calling herself Mortis, and her own carelessness, she'd been trapped inside her own mind half the night, experiencing every regret she'd ever had at once. It was more pain that she'd ever endured, and though it was over, it didn't feel over.

Tingling aftershocks ripped at her nerves and the images of those she loved and their pained expressions still branded her mind in white hot agony.

It had been easy to ignore the sensations while she tidied up loose ends. Screaming until she was raw, smacking down every arrogant fool that entered her line of sight, wrapping up the mission as though her experience with Mortis had been a mere speed bump during the night.

But standing in her apartment, she felt a crawling painful listlessness, and then, she suddenly couldn't breathe. It was the air in the apartment, she decided, and ran for the hall, pushed at the metal bar and barreled into the stairwell. She scurried up the concrete steps to the roof, the fresh cool ionized air slamming into her like a wall.

It was raining. _Of course it was raining._

"This is Gotham," she said. "This is my home."

These were facts that should be reassuring, but did little to stop the sharp pains in her chest. She decided it was possible she was dying, which only swept the terror through her like a brush-fire. In a flash of deja vu, she recognized the sounds of her own hyperventilating and realized she was having a panic attack.

_A panic attack? _She hadn't had one since Seattle, and she was an entirely different fighter now, a better version of herself. She cursed her well-trained body for betraying her like this.

The knowledge did nothing for her symptoms, and her shaking legs gave way to the cool wet cement. She curled into a ball, laying on her side and squeezed her knees to her chest. She couldn't breathe. Why couldn't she remember what to do?

His voice was there again, "Canary?"

Before she could compose words, he was closer, "Dinah?"

Batman was pulling her upright, into his arms, "can you speak?"

"Yes," she whispered, then tried to make her voice stronger, "she's not in here. Mortis. I'm fine. I just can't make them go away."

_Did that make sense? _

_ That really didn't make sense._

He held warm bare fingers to her neck, "your pulse is racing. You're trembling again. You're having an anxiety attack."

"I know," she smiled, sheepishly, "I just, I just can't seem to make it stop."

He clutched her to his chest, incapacitating her with his straightjacket arms, "I have a sedative I can give you, if -"

"No," her teeth were chattering. "I'll be fine."

"You will," he agreed, "you'll be fine."

It spilled from her in gasps, and she wasn't entirely certain of the coherence of her words, "I can't stop seeing them. I can't stop seeing their faces. Roy's arm and my dad's eyes and, and, Lian's body and that knife-wielding freak and Ollie's disappointment and, and of course my mom blames me, and oh god, the baby, oh god, and Sin crying, and I can't stop seeing them. I failed them all. It's over, but I can't stop feeling it, they just - "

"Don't try to speak. Just listen to me breathe," he cupped her head, guiding it to his hard chest. "Focus. Listen to my breathing, nothing else."

She was completely enveloped by him, and her head raised with his slow intake of breath and fell with his exhalation. In and out and in and out and in and out and in and out.

After a time, it was all she could see and feel, just Batman's breath, the pace had become her own and a welcome serenity crept in where the manic visions had been. She inhaled his unusual scent, like tar baking on a hot blacktop. It conjured childhood summertime memories, which further eased her anxiety.

She felt his fingers at her neck again.

"Much better," he concluded, but didn't release her.

She was curled up in his lap, shoeless, soaked through from the rain, and she knew she should feel ridiculous, but all she felt was content. Oddly comfortable, given that his body was shifting planes of hard muscles and smooth armor. She imagined it was akin to cuddling an armadillo.

There they stayed, on the hard roof, rain plagued, moonlit, and quietly embracing.

Her arms were falling asleep. She pulled them from their pinned position against his chest and placed her hands on either of his biceps, silently regarding his mouth. Then she kissed him, softly at first, grateful for the sensations that desire brought. His lips warm, he tasted of oranges and something smoky and unidentifiable. He returned the kiss, but as their ministrations turned passionate, he slowly pulled from her.

"Dinah," he said brusquely. _Which one of them was he reprimanding?_

"I could hear you," she said, placing her hands on either side of his face. "Tonight, I couldn't get out of my head when Mortis...but I heard _your_ voice. I heard you telling me not to let the darkness in. _I heard you_."

She leaned in to kiss him again, and he stopped her, his face knotted in concern, "Dinah, given everything you've been through tonight, this...this isn't a good idea."

"No," she felt tipsy, "given everything...this, Bruce, is a _great_ idea."

And when she kissed him this time, he reciprocated fully. She felt his hands, one bare and one gloved glide over her body, pulling her even closer. They were entwined and within minutes, he was inside her, and she toppled into orgasm. They came within seconds of each other, shuddering joyfully and panting into each other's mouths.

After a time, he breathed in her ear, "I know a thing or two about failure."

How was it that she was completely nude, and he managed to retain his clothing nearly entirely? She decided it a metaphor and smiled, brushing her lips against the light stubble on his neck, "is that so?"

She turned her head to see his lips, pinkened from kissing, and he continued, "however, it isn't failure, if the mistake can be corrected. And the real failures, the ones that cannot be remedied...it's doubtful your loved ones would hold you responsible. Perhaps you can find some amount of peace in that."

"That's awfully chipper, especially coming from you."

"I can be...chipper," he said flatly, and she laughed at his countenance.

She watched him eye the tiny puddle of her discarded clothing. He pulled his cape free and wrapped her in it's heavy wetness.

"Thank you," she said, for more than just the cape.

He smiled and blinked slowly.

"Come inside, have some tea with me, and we can face the after-sex weirdness head on," she suggested.

He nodded in agreement.

But there hadn't been any awkward moments; there was an emotional ease that she hadn't expected. Perhaps, after all these years, it had been inevitable. They'd spent the dawn in soft intimate talk, which lead to one very fun shower and seven months of making love and habituating.

It was unexpected and wonderful, and some asshole had seen the start of the whole thing through a lens, recording every private second.

"Dinah?" Helena asked gently, "you want to pull over? You look positively green."

"Huh? No. No, we need to hurry. I'll have to worry about my obligatory celebrity sex tape later."

Oracle sighed, "it's not going to be a problem. I can take care of it."

Huntress raised an eyebrow, "sex tape? You're not making any sense."

"I know. Another problem for another day. Let's just focus on my most recent clusterfuck, shall we?"

*Author's Note: It's been two years since I've updated, and this story just keeps clinking around in my head.

Those teeniest bits of encouragement from readers has me hoping that someone is still interested in reading this!

I do promise to complete this story; it makes me nuts when I get invested in a WIP, just to have the author leave me hanging (though, obviously, I do understand a fickle muse...)

If you read this, please tell me what you think. I'm a bit nervous posting after all this time.

Also, I realize I've made a lot of references to various canon, and I hope it hasn't been too confusing.

Three chapters to go before I wrap this up. I'll try and get it out at a more reasonable pace. :)


End file.
